Thursday, May 24, 2018

Atonement...

In moments of intense struggle, sometimes I look up and cry out, “God, I don’t know. I don’t know how my life is going to work out. But you do. Help me keep going. Help me have patience until I can understand.”
I have realized that God will not deny any of us the opportunity to have a personal experience with Jesus Christ. Life gets real. But the Atonement is real too. In crucibles of doubt and uncertainty, we have the opportunity to seek the Savior the most earnestly, the most sincerely, and come to know on a profound level how the Atonement applies to us personally. When we come unto Christ, He will come to us.
In Isaiah 49:23, God is speaking to His covenant people about the time when His promises will be fulfilled. The Lord tells them, “And thou shalt know that I am the Lord: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.”
In times of ambiguity and uncertainty, I will keep my covenants and wait for Him. He will come. His promises will be fulfilled. I will see Him and know Him “even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). And I will not be ashamed that I waited for Him.

Saturday, May 5, 2018

cowboy lessons

n her fine book called Adversity, Elaine Cannon shares this valuable example:
An old cowboy said he had learned life's most important lessons from Hereford cows. All his life he had worked cattle ranches where winter storms took a heavy toll among the herds. Freezing rains whipped across the prairies. Howling, bitter winds piled snow into enormous drifts. Temperatures might drop quickly to below zero degrees. Flying ice cut into the flesh. In this maelstrom of nature's violence most cattle would turn their backs to the ice blasts and slowly drift downwind, mile upon mile. Finally, intercepted by a boundary fence, they would pile up against the barrier and die by the scores.
But the Herefords acted differently. Cattle of this breed would instinctively head into the windward end of the range. There they would stand shoulder-to-shoulder facing the storm's blast, heads down against its onslaught.
"You always found the Herefords alive and well," said the cowboy. "I guess it's the greatest lesson I ever learned on the prairies--just face life's storms." [Elaine Cannon, Adversity (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1987), pp. 133¬34]
A person who understands that life is schooling is more likely to benefit from adversity than one who expects only happiness in life. [Cannon, Adversity, p. 46]
Dallin H. Oaks,  Brigham Young University on 17 January 1995.